Abstract
COVID-19 pandemic has a tremendous impression on every persons' life worldwide. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on patients having chronic illnesses. This study involved recruiting 460 participants during the period of lockdown due to COVID-19 disease (May 2020). Individuals who declared chronic disease (s) were ascertained as (cases), and those who didn't report any chronic disease were ascertained as (controls). The psychological influence of the COVID-19 outbreak on patients with chronic illness was then identified through comparing means and relative risk of the case and control groups using several psychiatric measures "Lockdown is necessary for the prevention of disease spread," the great majority of the study population agreed (mean 8.35). Cases (mean=8.48) were more frequently supporting lockdown than controls (mean=8.27).About 99/161(61%), 70/161(43%), 81/161(50%), and 73/161(45%) of the cases (patients with chronic diseases) claimed that COVID-19 prevented them from seeing their doctors, from continuing their medical treatment, increased their chronic illness, produced new symptoms, respectively. The pandemic outbreak of COVID-19 has a more frequent psychologic influence on patients with chronic diseases than others. Besides the psychological effects, COVID-19 associated circumstances affected patients with chronic illnesses by several means, particularly during the complete lockdown.